Representations of Familiar Wildlife in Germany and England, 1520-1630

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Abstract

This work uses Protestant propaganda, hunting tracts and forest laws, and natural histories to explore the depiction of deer, foxes, and hares in Germany and England, 1520-1630. Religious, venatorial, and natural historical discourses overlap with one another and the three differ more in the way in which they use real animals than in how they depict animals on the page. Continuing the theme of mixing the real and the symbolic, in portrayals of the characters of animals we see a mixture of real traits and anthropomorphic traits. Germany and England do not differ greatly in depiction of animals though they differ in several respects in the ways they used real animals. Deer, foxes, and hares are the example species because they were familiar, hunted, culturally significant animals and thus they can be compared to one another.